Her story: how this year’s Canberra Writers Festival is championing women

Posted on 16 October, 2024

Gender equality is safe and well at this year’s Canberra Writers Festival with women making up half of all featured writers.

For director Beejay Silcox, the strong presence of women’s voices is foundational to the festival.

“The analogy I use when putting together a festival program is that it should be a mirror: it should reflect this magnificent, undersung city back to itself. And so the strong presence of women’s voices is foundational.

“Equity is not the end point, it’s the starting point. New voices, established voices, First Nations voices, queer voices, migrant voices, working-class voices, body-and-brain diverse voices: it is my job to reflect the full cultural richness of our stories and storytellers. And it’s such a joyful, celebratory job.”

CWF Director Beejay Silcox

This is Beejay’s second year as Director with incoming CEO Travis Green helping steer the event into warmer weather between 23-27 October – cycling into spring  and providing audiences with some early pickings from a number of November releases. Prepare for 80 new books, including 28 fiction/poetry titles and 50-plus non-fiction titles, with more than half of these works being new releases published from July onwards. 

Meanwhile, there’ll be 66 conversation events and 13 masterclasses including a much-anticipated discussion between celebrated young authors Bri Lee and Emily Maguire over Emily’s latest novel Rapture (Earning The Risk, Friday 25 October at 3:30 pm). 

Bri Lee has described Rapture as the book of the year, putting her hand up to speak to Emily and predicting Rapture will become a book club favourite after its October release.

Author Emily Maguire

Emily is the author of seven novels and three non-fiction books. Her 2016 novel, An Isolated Incident, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and her book Love Objects was shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards Literary Fiction Book of the Year in 2022.  She was twice named as a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year.

Beejay said “Bri Lee’s session with Emily Maguire is a particular must-see, because it’s a session about ambition on and off the page. Both writers are literary risk-takers, and they will be talking about the work that underpins that risk.

“It’s the kind of conversation you can only get at a writer’s festival: behind the scenes insight from two smart art makers. Emily’s new novel, Rapture, is absolutely brilliant – the book of the summer. It’s the story of a legendary woman from medieval history whose life echoes down the ages.”

Destined to become a bookclub classic

In addition to her Canberra Writers Festival programming role, Beejay has spent the last two years as a judge for the Stella Prize – this year as chair. 

“Since August of 2022, I’ve read close to 500 works by Australian women and non-binary writers. The heartbeat of Australian writing is here. Our writing women deserve a passionate, global readership. It is culturally damning that the great majority of them struggle to eke out a sustainable career at home. And so it’s such a mighty privilege to showcase so many at Canberra Writers Festival, and watch audiences discover these magnificent authors for themselves.” 

More female stories

Other female stories Beejay was particularly thrilled to be sharing with Canberra audiences include:

• Charlotte Wood, the first Australian writer to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize in a decade, and one of our country’s most incandescent talents (she appears in two sessions: Get Thee to a Nunnery, Saturday 26 October 10 am and The Power of Quiet, Friday 25 October 10 am)
• International guest Lucia Osborne-Crowley, who was one of only four journalists admitted to cover the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell (Inside the Maxwell Trial, Friday 25 October 7 pm and Status Anxiety, Saturday 26 October 3:30 pm).
• Singer, songwriter and Yuwaalaraay storyteller Nardi Simpson, whose new novel The Belburd  is one of the best fiction debuts Beejay can recall (Continuity and Connection, Saturday 26 October 12.30 pm).
• Memoirist CJ Metcalfe. When CJ was born, her parents were told she would not live to see her teens. “CJ is now in her forties and knows more about love, grief and living than anyone I know.” (Postcards from the Edge, Friday 25 October 2 pm)
• Samah Sabawi, who will be sharing the tale of her Palestinian parents and their homeland – a family story, a love story, a human story (Love and Homelands, Friday 25 October 1 pm, and her masterclass: Life Writing with Samah Sabawi, Friday 25 October 9 am).

Palestinian author Samah Sabawi

• The magnificent Jessica Tu, who writes tales of sex, power and selfhood and shakes our orthodoxies (Your Favourites, Sunday 27 October 2.30 pm).
• Our celebration of the trailblazing life of Fran Kelly – a true national treasure (Fran Kelly – My Life in Stories, Thursday 24 October 6 pm).
• Wonderful local writers including Inga Simpson, Kaaron Warren and Andra Putnis.